Appel

Corneille

Heerup

Jorn

Spaightwood Galleries

Last updated: 4 September 2004

Bengt Lindström (Swedish, b. 1925)

"I believe that the idea of the professional painter is to surprise his entourage, to perturb them so as to show, no, to awaken them if you like, to show that there are other men who image unknown worlds, and it is these very worlds which are fabricated, which are necessary to a man to escape from this sad, material life that he himself has created" (Bengt Lindstrom in Eva-Britt Tiger, Lindström [Paris: Fragments Editions, 1998), p. 155].

"From time immemorial man, as an artist, has stood at the center of creation. He has sighted human forms in the mountains, everywhere he has cast his own image. He has ascribed power to the gods he has given birth to, and he has looked to them for order or chaos. Bengt Lindstrom acknowledges, converses with or fights against these primordial, multiple, contradictory gods, fathers or mothers of the world and man. They help him to express himself, he is fascinated by their origin. At first they were glances, their eye was the sun or the moon, they were boorn of the wind, of thunder, of rain . . . . The painter underscores, as myths do, the analogies between the eye and the stars, the mouth and the river. . . . He paints as an immenseness a glance or the detail of a face to express immoderation; gods become signs that speak of birth, fusion, coherence or disorder" (Michel Perrin in Eva-Britt Tiger, Lindström, pp. 14-19].

Lindström was born in Storsjö Kapell (Sweden) in 1925. After studying in Paris with André Lhote and Fernand Leger, Lindstrom began showing his work in 1950. He has had many shows in Europe and the US. Although his art is close to that of COBRA and he was a friend of Asger Jorn and often exhibited with Appel, he never belonged to the group. Lindström is a loner, untamed in the finest sense of the word. Initiated to Shamanism by his Godfather, and shaman himself, he builds up reserves of imagination every summer with the Lapp people with whom he enjoys a privileged relationship. Dense, charnel matter, the exclusive use of pure colour, transmits cosmic energy and elevates the sagas of the Northern peoples to the height of their intensity. Lindstom's prints and paintings offer an excessive, theatrical vision of life. (It does not surprise one to learn that he has often illustrated Shakespeare.) His work hs been widely shown in Europe and the US: there have been over 190 one-persons shows of his work at museums and galleries in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.S. and Uruguay; he has been featured in such international events as the Venice Biennalle, FIAC, the Salon de Mai, and the Carnegie International; his works are included in the permanent collections of over 38 museums, including the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Centre Pompidou, the Musée d'art Moderne (Paris), the Louisiana Museum (Denmark), the Tate (London), and the Carnegie Museum (Pittsburgh). A museum dedicated to his work will soon be completed in Sweden; among other works, it will include all of his over 800 prints.

Untitled I. Original color etching and aquatint with carborundum, 1980. 90 signed & numbered impressions of which ours is n. 12/90. A richly-textured piece in which a man running on all fours has an unknown blue creature (perhaps a monkey or a demon) on his back. Image size: 893x726mm Price: SOLD

Untitled II. Original color etching and aquatint with carborundum, 1980. 90 signed & numbered impressions of which ours is n. 16/90. A richly-textured piece in which two unknown blue creatures are attacking each other over the body of what maay be a shaman in a quest mask. Image size: 893x726mm Price: SOLD.

Composition X. Original color lithograph, c. 1970 . 100 signed & numbered impressions on Arches. Ours is signed and annotated "HC." Published by Editions Empreinte, with their drystamp. Two faces seem to be talking about a third which seems to have turned green. Image size: 800x600mm. Price: $1150.

Composition VIII. Original color lithograph, c. 1970 . 100 signed & numbered impressions on Arches. Ours is signed and annotated "HC." Published by Editions Empreinte, with their drystamp. What appears to be a woman is holding and petting a creature that seems to be a pet. Image size: 800x600mm. Price: $1150.

To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (255-3043 in Madison & vicinity) or send an email to sptwd@spaightwoodgalleries.com. We accept AmericanExpress, DiscoverCard, MasterCard, and Visa.